Perfect 3-Day Itinerary in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Three days is the right length, and the three-day Angkor pass helps by staying valid across a longer window, so a rest day in the middle costs nothing. The shape that works in this heat is two shifts: out by 05:00 or 08:00, back by half past ten, then a pool or a museum until the light softens around three. Buy the pass at the ticket centre on Road 60, where they photograph you and print it on the spot; drivers know to stop there first and it adds about twenty minutes.
Days one and two
Day one is the small circuit. Angkor Wat at sunrise from the left-hand pond, breakfast at one of the stalls behind it, then the Bayon and the terraces inside Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm for the strangler figs, and Banteay Kdei and Srah Srang on the way home. Day two goes further out: Banteay Srei first, roughly forty minutes north, because its pink sandstone carving is at its sharpest in early light, then the Landmine Museum nearby, then the grand circuit — Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som and Pre Rup, which makes a better sunset than crowded Phnom Bakheng.
Day three and the evenings
Day three is the break from stone: the Tonlé Sap at Kampong Phluk or, further out and quieter, Kampong Khleang, where houses stand on ten-metre stilts and the flooded forest is navigable by rowing boat from about September. If you want one more temple instead, Beng Mealea sits collapsed and overgrown 65 km east. Evenings are simple — the Old Market, the night markets and one ticket for Phare, The Cambodian Circus, which usually starts around 20:00. A tuk-tuk for the whole day is what most people take on the small circuit; an air-conditioned car costs several times as much and earns it on day two, when the driving is longer.